Rockets Carried Large Payload Of Gas, Experts Say

A new study of images apparently from the Syrian massacre in August concludes the rockets delivering toxic sarin gas to neighborhoods around Damascus held up to 50 times more nerve agent than previously estimated.

That conclusion could solve the mystery of why there were so many more victims than in previous chemical attacks, experts said.

The study, by leading weapons experts, also suggests that the mass of toxic material could have come only from a large stockpile.

U.S., British and French officials have charged that only the Syrian regime and not the rebels was in position to make such large quantities of deadly toxins.

Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress in hearings Tuesday and Wednesday that the United States believes that the Syrian military was responsible for the attack. In classified briefings, officials have pointed to Unit 450, which controls Syrian chemical weapons.

The new study was conducted by Richard Lloyd, an expert in warhead design, and Dr. Theodore Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

They based their investigation on scores of online videos and photographs posted since the Aug. 21 attack.

In interviews and reports, the two weapons specialists said their analysis of rocket parts and wreckage posted online suggested that the warheads carried toxic payloads of about 13 gallons, not a half-gallon of nerve agent that some weapons experts have estimated.

“It's a clever design,” Postol said of the munitions. “It's clever not only in how it was implemented but in the effectiveness of its dispersal. It accounts for the large number of causalities.”

Lloyd and Postol say their analysis explains how the misidentification of a central rocket part resulted in the excessively small payload estimates made by analysts shortly after the attack.

Lloyd said the manufacture of the rockets, if not the deadly nerve agent, appeared to be within the capabilities of both the Syrian government and the rebels.

The Obama administration has charged that the Syrian regime fired rockets carrying warheads filled with sarin, a liquid nerve agent that vaporizes into a deadly mist that human skin can quickly absorb.

“This design explains the evidence on the ground,” Postol said.

The cloud from the impacting rocket, he added, probably rose to a height of 10 or 15 feet.